Adventures in Public Health.

Oh, have I got an adventure for you!

You may have noticed that I've been remarkably quiet here on the blogging front..... Well, I have an excuse. It's not that Mummy and I have been busy at work and childcare, but I've been in hospital.

Mid-way through last week, what the mum's from my 'posse' call my smoker's cough was getting a lot worse. On Wednesday, Mummy picked me up from childcare and the beautiful Natasha said she was a little concerned about my cough and that I had a high temperature. Mummy took me home, dosed me up on panadol and cough syrup, and sent me to bed (naturally after some gruel and a sound whipping...joking, joking....we were all out of gruel, so I had the crumbs from the bottom of the toaster.) After a shocking night's sleep, which Auntie Kathryn can attest to (she rang to bitch, sorry I mean talk with Mummy and heard me coughing and declared I wasn't sounding well) Mummy made me a doctor's appointment.The lovely Seema, our doctor took one look at me and started to go into cardiac arrest, sending me off for x-rays and ultimately to hospital.

After transversing the length and breadth of Canberra, several hours in Emergency and twelve hours since our initial appointment, I was safely tucked into a bed in the paediatrics ward, with god awful oxygen prongs up my nose, and even more offensive heart monitors attached to my toes. My blood oxygen saturation levels and my heart rate were having a hard time stabilising and frankly, I felt damn miserable.

Because Mummy and Daddy are cheap-skates and because Canberra Hospital is a teaching facility, we saw marauding hordes of interns, residents and registrars, all of whom had different opinions on what was wrong with me:

Oh, it's pneumonia..

Oh, it's an acute viral infection..

Oh, it's early onset asthma..

ad nauseum.

Eventually, the hoards in white coats settled on bronchiolitis. Then just when I was starting to feel better, I tested positive to some virus called RSV and had to go into isolation.After my second night in hospital, Mummy was a big, fat teary mess, Daddy was sick of driving back and forth and Nellie just wanted me and Mummy to come home, they let me out. YAY! Man the sun and wind on my face as we walked to the car felt good...and scruffing my Nellie and pulling my books off the shelf and distributing them around the room feels good too.

So, I'm home, and while I will miss the perks of hospital like frequent bottles of milk (something they phased out weeks ago here), foods like flavoured yohgurt and custard and unlimited access to my dummy, I'm happy to be home. I'll let you know in a few days how the smoker's cough is going, but now I've got to hassle that dog, she's had it far too easy the last few days!